represented what
great difficulties would result from the publication and execution
of it, in order that he might wait for an appeal to be taken to his
Holiness. For the orders of St. Francis, St. Dominic, and St. Augustine
have nine convents and four hospitals, where they have achieved great
results in the conversion; moreover, they were admitted and called
thither by the emperor. They find a great number of people disposed
to receive the gospel law, and it would be impossible for the fathers
of the Society (who are in some kingdoms of Japon) to be sufficient as
workmen in so broad and fertile a vineyard. On this account, it would
cause great scandal among the converted and those to be converted,
to see the opposition of one order to the others, since previously
they held them all to be uniform in the purpose of the spreading of
the gospel, and the religious to be vassals of one king and subjects
of the one and only head of the church. But in spite of the statements
of the friars, the bishop ordered the said brief to be published and
made known, with its penalties and censures. Councils were held by
the orders in the Philipinas and Japon, and they thought that they
ought to appeal from the said brief to his Holiness; this was done
before the said bishop, in order that his Holiness might understand
the state in which affairs were in those lands, and, being better
informed, revoke the brief. It seems important, for the decision of
this matter, that it be understood, from the description of Japon
and from trustworthy accounts, that the preaching of the fathers of
the Society, in the more than fifty years since they entered Japon,
has not reached to within a hundred miles of the kingdoms of Quanto,
where there are some convents of discalced Franciscan friars, nor
has the merchandise of the Portuguese done so; but on the contrary
the emperor--having a particular fondness for those kingdoms, as
being a patrimony of his--at great cost has caused to be carried by
land some of the merchandise which the Portuguese brought from China
to Japon. So then, neither is the Society limited in the bounds of
its preaching, nor is the crown of Portugal in those of its trade;
for even if six ships went there, instead of the single one that now
goes from Macao each year, all that they should carry would still
easily be consumed in the lands which are more than a hundred leguas
distant from those of Quanto. For from the island where Nangacaqui